In recent times, the sports action camera market has expanded rapidly disrupting the digital imaging industry, which was largely focused on video, low end point and shoot, and SLR cameras. Point of view (POV) sports action cameras have taken significant share of this market becoming the principal means of recording action and adventure related sports.
With the expansion of the POV sports camera technology, many manufactures have begun to offer increasingly feature rich products. In order to compete in the POV sports camera market, products must be generally small, light, rugged, easy and fast to setup, mobile, highly integrated, feature rich, and provide exceptionally effective image capture.
As the number of videos and images captured with POV sports cameras has grown, consumers and producers have recognized a major limitation of POV sports cameras; first-person perspective becomes redundant and capturing second-person or third-person perspective is difficult or impractical without a dedicated camera operator. Prior developments have attempted to solve this problem in various ways yet have failed to provide a simple yet complete solution. Offering second-person or third-person perspective without a dedicated camera operator remains a considerable problem for the sports action camera market.
Most prior developments have attempted to solve the problem by using a stationary piece part solution to aim a separate, non-integrated video recording device at a subject. This line of development is prohibitively bulky, clumsy to use, slow to setup, and immobile.
Thus, solutions have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any complete solutions, and solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art. Thus, there remains a considerable need for devices and methods that can provide automated, integrated, and effective relational tracking, framing, and filming capabilities for the sports camera market.